The present invention relates to an apparatus for forming groups of side-by-side piles of parallelepipedon shaped articles. In particular, the present invention relates to an apparatus for gathering into parallelepipedon shaped groups a plurality of cigarette packets, delivered by an high-speed cellophane wrapping machine, which groups are to be supplied to a parcelling or cartoning machine.
The groups of packets can be conceived as obtained by superposing two or more rows, formed by the same number of packets, or even by bringing a plurality of piles, each consisting of the same number of packets, close together.